To conduct business on the INTERNET a company must separate its internal business data (e.g., customer profiles, accounts receivable, etc.) from its WEB commerce server. Conventionally, two applications are required, a business management backend application which contains and manages the company's internal business data, and a WEB commerce frontend application with which customers interact via the INTERNET.
The frontend and backend applications are connected via a firewall which prevents INTERNET access to the backend application. However, to enable the frontend and the backend applications to successfully execute the many different commercial operations (e.g., placing an order, obtaining product information, obtaining customer information, obtaining order status, etc.) that arise, requires considerable time and effort. Specifically, each frontend and each backend application typically employs diverse database schemes, program calls, application programming interfaces (APIs) or common-gateway interfaces (CGIs). To compound the problem, the database schemes, program calls, APIs and CGIs of each application may vary with each new release of the application, and companies may frequently change or customize their commercial operations. Accordingly, a generic interface which can be quickly adapted to new frontend and new backend applications is required, as is a method of enabling easily customizable commercial operations.